Users of handheld devices, such as cellular mobile telephones, communicators, multimedia phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), handheld gaming devices, and the like, and combinations thereof, collectively referred to herein as “handheld devices,” desire that such devices provide telecommunication services, as well as gaming, entertainment, and other features that require sophisticated graphical user interfaces (GUI's). A need has therefore arisen to develop and provide sophisticated user interfaces (UI's) that provide enhanced gaming and entertainment capabilities, which are also intuitive to use.
A common gaming UI is a gaming rocker (hereinafter referred to as a “rocker”) which may be depressed at any one of a number of points, such as four, five, eight, or nine points, located on the rocker. For example, a rocker with four such points, may be depressed at a selected point to indicate orthogonal directions such as up, down, left, or right.
Conventionally, gaming rockers are designed to rotate about a center pillar made of a rigid material, such as plastic or metal. A skirt fabricated from an elastic material, such as silicon, is positioned about the perimeter of the rocker so that, when the rocker is depressed, the skirt is deformed. Then, when pressure on the rocker is released, the skirt restores the rocker to its original position.
However, unlike keys on a cell phone, which are designed to withstand one to two million cycles, a rocker must be configured to withstand up to five million cycles, and maintain good user feel during the entirety of its life. Conventional rockers using an elastic skirt, however, will not generally withstand such demands.
Thus, a need has arisen for a rocker that can withstand up to five million cycles of usage, while maintaining good user feel during the entirety of its life.